//------------------------------//
// Prologue / Recap of Book 1 
// Story: Twilight Sparkle Becomes a Changeling Queen, Book 2: Twilight Sparkle Defends Her Hive 
// by bahatumay 
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	Twilight Sparkle trudged onward, the hot sun beating down on her face and neck; her mane doing precious little to protect her from its punishing rays. Last time Bruch had led her here, she was leading a large task force of royal guards in the middle of the night. In the day, the sands grew hot and the wind blew hotter, and she now knew why this desert had earned the moniker of ‘badlands’.

Still, she couldn’t show weakness, not in front of her changelings. There was only one real rule about changeling royalty: there must always be a queen. And if the former queen was killed, then it stood to reason that her killer would make a better queen, and therefore deserved the power and authority queenship came with. 

At least, that’s what the changeling magic apparently thought, anyway. In Twilight’s opinion, dispensing huge quantities of power and magic simply due to physical fighting superiority was no basis for a system of government.

Twilight brought a hoof up to rub at her aching jaw. The magic also apparently felt the need to change her body. Her eyes had changed, her horn had lengthened and begun to curl, and just recently her jaw had begun to grow. She’d thought she’d outgrown growing pains, but the changeling magic had other ideas.

That was a process that would require much more study.

She glanced back towards Jarret and the small group of changelings he led. With no other option—apparently, the love didn’t store very well and needed to be stirred constantly—they had elected to carry the love collected in their own bodies, giving each changeling the odd impression of looking pregnant with triplets. They hadn’t walked so much as shuffled the whole journey. Twilight couldn’t help but crack a half-smile. She’d need to research something for that, helping make love be more portable. Or at least last longer. With time, it congealed and turned crusty and unpalatable, necessitating the cleaning and scraping of the storage pits.

As if on cue, Ponneka walked by, keeping a respectful distance from the others and keeping a respectable distance from the edge of the group. As a changeling who had an (admittedly unhealthy) fascination with sensual conduct with ponies, she had been permanent pit-cleaner, target practice dummy and all-around pariah. Ideally, Twilight would want all her changelings to be united as one.

Then again, what was ideal for a changeling? She’d already tried having changelings stay with her friends in Ponyville, but only one changeling had stayed. Apparently, living with ponies wasn’t a very changeling-y thing to do; and most of her volunteers had gone along with her idea more out of a sense of duty (and because she was much nicer and more reasonable than the previous queen) than an actual desire to live freely among ponies.

As she pondered, she suddenly ran into the back of Bruch. Bruch had been the first changeling to betray Queen Chrysalis, and had been an invaluable advisor for her. 

Thankfully, he didn’t seem to mind nearly being run over. “We're here,” he said. 

Twilight looked up at the rocks. Though they looked foreboding, if she squinted, she could barely recognize some of the rock features from the night of the raid, back before any of this had started and her biggest concern was her studies on griffon relations. It seemed so foreign, and yet so familiar at the same time.

She exhaled. Like it or not, she was home.